We are happy to announce that Exploring a Sense of Place becomes a fiscally sponsored project of Acterra on July 1, 2010. Our purpose remains the same as it has been for the last four years when we were a part of Conexions: Exploring a Sense of Place is a program designed to provide the means by which people anywhere on Earth can reconnect with the natural world where they live, assisted by our guidebook, leadership training workshops and local courses. The series of explorations foster familiarity with the local geology, weather and climate, wildlife and Earth wisdom of indigenous people.

Our current focus is to mentor individuals and groups through the use of our Exploring a Sense of Place guidebook to create their own process/program for exploring the place where they live. Our intention is to broadcast this possibility to new watersheds and landscapes by getting our guidebook into the hands of many more people who will use it to initiate their own process.

Watch for updates on this website!

Exploring a Sense of Place, How to create your own local program for reconnecting with Nature is available! Order it today. This guidebook will help you with your own process of discovery and reconnection with the natural world where you live. This book will inspire you and give you all the practical tools you need to design, develop, organize, and produce an Exploring a Sense of Place program specific to your own bioregion. Click here to order yours. ORDER THE BOOK

On Monday March 8 we will have two speakers. Paul Heiple will talk about “The Impacts of Land Use on the Arastradero Preserve and the Benefits of Good Land Use from the Beginning”. Franklin Olmsted will give us a brief account of volunteer restoration efforts by Friends of Foothills Park and California Native Plant Society at Foothills Park from 1996 to 2010.

Arastradero Preserve is a beautiful mixture of rolling savanna grassland and broad leaf evergreen forest. It varies in elevation from 275 feet in the northeast to 775 feet in the southwest. Wildlife abounds on the preserve and it is not uncommon to see deer, bobcats, coyotes, and many varieties of birds.

On Saturday morning we will join Paul for a habitat Restoration Day at the Pearson-Arastradero Preserve. We will, enjoy ourselves while breathing the fresh air and helping restore the lovely Pearson-Arastradero Preserve!

After lunch we will be joined by Franklin as we go for a walk though the Preserve. We should see serpentine soil, the Arastradero Lake, riparian areas, oak woodland and grasslands. We will see many native and non-native plants.

Come join us for a late afternoon gathering over warm cider and hors d’oeuvres inspired by the prose and poetry of three talented writers expressing the awesome story of our Universe in very different ways.

Featuring Drew Dellinger, Betty Kissilove and David Ergo

When: February 28th, 4pm-6pm

Cost: $30, $27 for Conexions members

Location:  At a beautiful sustainably designed home in Portola Valley overlooking the Bay Area – Address and directions to be provided upon registration

Space is limited!  To register, click here,
or contact Karen Harwell at (650) 938-9300 x15
or kharwell@conexions.org.

Drew Dellinger is the founder of Poets for Global Justice. His collection of poems, love letter to the milky way has sold thousands of copies to eager readers all over the world. He has shared his work at gatherings and conferences; in classrooms and prisons; in women’s’ groups, mens’ groups, and spiritual communities.
In 1997 Dellinger received Common Boundary magazine’s national Green Dove Award.  Dellinger co-wrote the documentary film, “The Awakening Universe,” which premiered at the United Nations in 2005.  Dellinger has studied cosmology and ecological thought with Thomas Berry since 1990 and is finishing his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Dellinger lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Betty-Ann Kissilove has taught English as a Second Language at the City College of San Francisco since 1980.  She has been captivated and influenced by the Story of the Universe for over twenty years.  This interest, along with her history as a teacher, led her to write her epic poem, Great Ball of Fire!, a whimsical rendition of Earth’s 13.7 billion year story.

David Ergo was raised in Northern California, where at an early age he felt a deep disconnection between the western world and the damage being done to the natural world. No longer able to ignore the escalating ecological and social crises he first sensed as a child, he left his corporate training and flight instruction careers to pursue a path of learning and teaching about the need to face up to the ecological, social, and spiritual crises of the age. He is the author of the forthcoming book, The Holy Universe: A New Story of Creation, and Humanity’s Journey Through the Great Transition. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

On Monday February 8 our speaker is Naturalist Annette Coleman, who grew up in Palo Alto. After graduating, from UC Davis with a degree in Environmental Interpretation, Annette worked ten years as a Ranger at Foothills Park, and ten years as Area Superintendent for Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. She has also worked as a Naturalist for the City of Palo Alto, and now finds herself managing the Baylands Nature Interpretive Center, conducting weekend programs and organizing school field trips to Palo Alto Open Spaces. The title of Annette’s presentation tonight will be “We are in the Pacific Flyway”.

Then on Saturday, February 13 we will be at the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve, the largest tract of undisturbed marshland remaining in the San Francisco Bay. “The Baylands’, is considered to be one of the premier birding locations on the entire West Coast, providing a safe residence for the endangered California clapper rail, among a multitude of other birds. With such lush bird life, unique plant distribution (which includes interspersed cordgrass and pickleweed habitats) and various waterside settings, we will have the opportunity to develop our sense of place.

Baylands Naturalist, Annette Coleman will join us in the morning. We will be refining our observation skills, and learning about the Baylands as a resourceful migratory habitat. We will absorb the great expanse of this preserved marshland, while observing both migrant and residential birds interacting with their habitat. Tidal salt marshes, found in the Preserve, are known as the most productive biological zones on earth. This is frequently demonstrated in the Baylands, whether by a Snowy Egret poised in its foraging stance, or the sweeping bill of the Avocet, or the hovering American Kestrel ready to pounce.

In the afternoon we will be with Naturalist, Drew Harwell, for our Reflections segment of the day. Drew has a BA in Environmental Restoration from Prescott College and was trained in nature awareness at the Regenerative Design Institute. . Drew has worked with children, teens and adults for over 13 years. His style of mentoring is to help students explore nature through their individual passions and creativity. Drew will be assisting us in deepening our skills in sensing, seeing and reflecting. We will have time for a silent, solo walk along the Baylands to a lovely spot where we can sit for a while and ponder our sense of place, reflect, write, draw. Following some sharing we walk back to the Conexions Center.

An Afternoon with Nils Peterson
Date: January, 24 2010 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Location Address (City, State, Zip):
Private home in Palo Alto foothills, directions to be provided upon registration
Contact:
Laurel Smith
(650) 938-9300 ex. 17
lsmith@conexions.org

Exploring a Sense of Place is delighted to host an afternoon with Nils Peterson, First Santa Clara County Poet Laureate
Space is limited to the first 30 people! Please make reservations and payment by January 15th by contacting Laurel Smith at (650) 938-9300 ex. 17 or lsmith@conexions.org.
Click here to register online using your credit card.

Cost:
$30 Regular
$27 Conexions Member – Become a member
About the Instructor/Speaker:

Nils Peterson, Professor Emeritus, taught for the English and Humanities Departments at San Jose State University from 1963 to 1999. For over twenty years he was the Coordinator of the Creative Writing Emphasis as well as the Coordinator of the Creative Arts and Chair of the Humanities Department. The Student Honor Society also chose him as Professor of the Year.
Peterson is a published poet and science fiction author, and has written articles in a wide array of subjects ranging from nature to Shakepeare. He has been an editor for “Discover America”, a contributing editor of “The Blue Sofa Review”, and a poetry consultant for San Jose State Studies.
Peterson was nominated for a Pushcar prize in 2005, and was named Santa Clara County’s first Poet Laureate in March of 2009.

On Monday January 4, 2010 we’ve arranged for two guest speakers! Léo Laporte, a Professor Emeritus in Earth Sciences at UCSC and a Jasper Ridge docent will be giving us a brief overview of Jasper Ridge. Then in keeping with our theme for the month, Animal Awareness, Brian Knittel from Riekes Nature’s Awareness Center (www.riekes.org) will provide us with an outline of animal awareness and suggest some ways to help us open our senses in natural settings.
Then on Saturday, January 9, we will set out on our exploration to Jasper Ridge. There you will meet our docents for the day:
-Brian Knittel, Animal awareness docent
-John Montgomery-Brown, PhD. Stanford, Environmental Science.
-Léo Laport: J.R Docent, geology expert & specialist in serpentine soil ecology.
-Pepper Yelton: J. R. Docent and expert in flora of the region.

We will then spend the majority of the morning walking and looking for animal track sites. During our walk, we will also observe flora and fauna of the area and learn about serpentine soil ecology. Of course we will also be keeping an eye out for any lichens, mosses or fungi that catch our interest. This time of year and with all the rain, we are sure to discover a variety of colored fungus! (If you have any field books on the subject, please bring them.)

On the way back to the Jasper Ridge Field Research Lab for our picnic lunch, we pass though riparian woodland area and might possibly see a wood rat nest or two. After lunch, we will then visit an old Ohlone site with grinding stone area and cave. This day should be a full and rich experience!

On Monday, November 30, from 7 to 9 PM our featured guest speaker is Jack Laws. Naturalist, educator and artist John (Jack) Muir Laws delights in exploring the natural world and sharing this love with others. He has worked as an environmental educator for over 25 years in California, Wyoming, and Alaska. He is trained as a wildlife biologist and is a research associate of the California Academy of Sciences. His illustrations capture the feeling of the living plant or animal, while also including details critical for identification. He teaches classes on natural history, conservation biology, scientific illustration, and field sketching. His most recent book, The Laws Guide to the Sierra Nevada, is an illustrated field guide to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals and is beautifully illustrated with 2,710 original watercolor paintings. We welcome him as a special presenter for our course as we explore the wonder of creativity in nature together.

On Saturday, December 5, from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM we will be at Foothills Park and our facilitator is Jana Tuschman. From childhood Jana has been involved with a wide variety of artistic pursuits and passions. She was trained as an art therapist and worked briefly in that field before she began facilitating art-making with children in the Palo Alto and Los Lomitas School Districts. Currently Jana is painting with acrylics and mixed media as well as encaustics. Another major interest is dying fabric and hand stitching art quilts. Recently Jana has begun to volunteer at Art for Well Beings, an art studio in Palo Alto serving artists with special needs.

As we approach the Winter Solstice, we will experience the coming of winter outdoors at Foothills Park. After our evening with Jack Laws on Monday, we will be coming to this place with a new sensitivity and the perspective of the artist that is in each of us.

The natural world invites heightened awareness and expanded presence. The way one discovers these expanded states, as well as the nature of the states themselves, are vital to the creative process. We will explore our innate creativity by immersing ourselves in nature.

Sensory awareness practices, simple meditation, drawing and writing exercises and experiments with shifting perspective will stimulate curiosity, wonder and creative expression. The focus will be on qualities that are central to cultivating creativity,
particularly close observation, interest in process, playfulness, passion, and the ability to proceed regardless of expectation and judgment. These qualities are part of any creative process, whether in art or a wide range of other endeavors.

As a starting place for experimenting with creativity and a sense of place, here are some inspiring quotes:

“I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.”
— Frederick Frank from The Zen of Seeing 1973

Every creative act involves. . . a new innocence of perception, liberated from the cataract of accepted belief.”
— Arthur Koestler from The Sleepwalkers, 1959

“To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large – this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone.”
— Aldous Huxley from The Doors of Perception, 1954

Our purpose for focusing on the upper watershed is to foster our understanding of how a watershed comes into being. On Monday, November 9 our speaker will be geologist Paul Heiple. He will be covering the “Structure of the West Union Creek”. Early in his career, Paul attended Colorado School of Mines and then worked in the oil industry. He moved to the Bay Area in 1994 bringing along his inquisitive mind and love for nature. He currently lives in Portola Valley and is the Chair of the Conservation Committee that is workin with the San Francisquito watershed Council on creek restoration and removal of non native invasive plants within the creek of Portola Valley. Paul is well known within the mid-Peninsula environmental community and we are honored to have him as a guest.

On Saturday, November 14 we will have Paul heiple as our guide, for the morning. We will walk along West Union Creek, which is a feeder stream to San Francisquito Creek, while learning the structure and natural history of the upper watershed as well as exploring the variety of wildlife in this riparian corridor.

In the afternoon we will be joined by Vanessa Eyen who will prepare and guide us in “Stepping into a Sacred Dialogue with Nature.” This is a unique way of getting in touch with yourself and nature. Vanessa has her Master’s degree in Outdoor Education and Community Counseling, a Bachelors degree in Psychology, and is certified as a yoga teacher and wilderness first responder. Passionate about fostering a connection to the natural world, she worked as a teacher, program director and trainer for outdoor environmental education companies since 2001. Specializing in nature based counseling, she was the teacher assistant for the undergraduate classes Ecopsychology and Dreams, Myths, and Symbols with Mary Gomes at Sonoma State Univ. Vanessa guides youth quests for several bay area schools and organizations.

Our speaker on Monday, October 5 will be Naturalist Annette Coleman. Her presentation will be titled “A Salt Marsh Prevails through the Years in Palo Alto; a short history of the use, abuse and restoration of the Palo Alto Baylands”. Anette grew up in Palo Alto and after graduating from UC Davis with a degree in Environmental Interpretation spent ten years as a ranger at Foothills Park then another ten as Area Superintendent for Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and now works for the City of Palo Alto managing the Baylands Interpretive Center.

On Saturday, October 10 we will start our day in the Baylands Nature Interpretative Center and explore the laboratory and wildlife displays. Then Annette will take us out to explore the surrounding area. She will introduce us to the different vegetation growing within the mudflats and point out some of the various birds that live in the area and give us a sense of how the ecology has changed.

During lunch we will discuss a “Bioregional Quiz” with David Coale. After lunch we will continue our journey with David, who will lead us to the mouth of the San Francisquito Creek, where we can see it flowing into the Bay. David Coale, another native of the area, developed a love for the area and became knowledgeable of the Baylands with weekly walks in the area over the past eight years. David has taught a variety of classes for Acterra: Green Teams, Choices for Sustainable Living, Exploring Deep Ecology and more.